Straight arrow Rose hopeful Cougars on target for more success

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PROVO, Utah -- Google the words "Phi Slama Jama" and the names "Dream" Olajuwon, "Glide" Drexler and "Silent Assassin" Young bring back memories of Houston's high-flying 1983 Final Four team.

Scroll a little farther along and the name Dave Rose appears. No adjectives, no catchy nicknames, just simple, straightforward, unassuming.

Rose, who 28 years later is trying to take the Brigham Young Cougars to college basketball's greatest stage, probably wouldn't have it any other way.

"Coach is really soft-spoken and humble about his part on a Final Four team," said BYU assistant Dave Rice, a member of UNLV's 1990 NCAA championship team. "If guys bring it up, he'll talk about it. But it's not something he brings up very often."

That's not to say Rose can't impart those experiences to his third-seeded BYU squad, which faces No. 2 seed Florida in a Southeast regional semifinal Thursday in New Orleans.

And he certainly isn't about to squelch his players' excitement.

"I don't know if you can be overexcited to play," Rose said before his team left Tuesday for the Big Easy. "What you hope is that they play with no fear. They understand they're in a position where a couple of more wins ... and they're in the Final Four. That's the ultimate goal ... then you see what happens from there."

As a player, Rose was an energy guy off the bench, a co-captain and shooting guard asked to hit the open shot, make the extra pass or dive for a loose ball -- not necessarily dunk with the likes of his more famous teammates Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Michael Young.

As a coach, there's no denying Rose's success.

He recently was named one of four finalists for the 2011 Naismith Men's College Coach of the Year award.

His 127 victories in his first five seasons at BYU placed him fifth for best career starts by wins in NCAA history, ahead of names such as Jerry Tarkanian, Jim Boeheim and Thad Matta.

This year's 32-4 mark is a school record, and his 78-18 mark in Mountain West Conference games is the best winning percentage (.813) in conference history.

He won back-to-back MWC coach of the year honors his first two seasons and shared the honor with San Diego State's Steve Fisher this season.

Though intense competitors on the court, the men share a friendship and respect for each other.

"He's very genuine," Fisher said of the 53-year-old Rose. "He's not full of himself. He doesn't have to tell you he's good. He's not overly demonstrative. He's a guy that when they win, he sits back and talks about how good a team he's got."

Fisher also called Rose "steady at the wheel," even when BYU goes through occasional rough patches -- something it did this year when leading rebounder Brandon Davies was suspended late in the season for violating the school's honor code.

"He doesn't scream and yell and go crazy too often," said the more animated Fisher. "I like his style. Obviously, he's got proven results with what he's done."

Rose will be the first to admit his style has changed a bit over the years. At Dixie State College, players recalled him as a coach not afraid to storm down the tunnel and chase after a referee.

He's not so apt to do that anymore.

Part of it no doubt was making the jump from the junior college ranks to BYU assistant, then to head coach in 2005 of a midmajor program.

A more profound impact, however, came from lying in a pool of his own blood during a scare with pancreatic cancer while on a family vacation during the summer of 2009.

A Deseret News story last year chronicled how paramedics removed an ailing Rose from a flight to Las Vegas and Rose's worsening condition in the emergency room where he coughed up enormous amounts of blood.

Further tests revealed a grapefruit-sized tumor on his spleen, which was removed in emergency surgery along with the tail end of his pancreas and six lymph nodes.

The diagnosis was pancreatic neuro-endocrine cancer -- considered a rarer form of cancer that is not as aggressive as the most common form of pancreatic cancer that claimed the life of actor Patrick Swayze and thousands of others through the years.

Though Rose can never say he is "cured" because the cancer left the source where it originated, scans every six months have shown him cancer-free.

Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs had surgery for a similar condition to Rose's in 2004 and still deals with the disease.

While Rose's prognosis remains good, he readily admits he's a changed man on and off the court.

He smiles more, takes more time for his family, notices tiny details he otherwise would have missed.

"He just appreciates every day now and having the opportunity to coach because he was really close that summer ... to having that all taken away," Rice said.

"He still very competitive and still has the same fire. But the big change is that he worries a little bit less on a day-to-day basis about the little things."

Rose no doubt will take time to smell the beignets in New Orleans and allow his players to take in some sights, just as they did when playing in Buffalo, N.Y., this season.

"We stayed at Niagara Falls," Rose said of that late-December trip. "There was a time in my career (where I'd think), 'If we go to Niagara Falls, we'll jinx ourselves.' "

That's not the case anymore.

He's also doesn't view each season as success or failure.

"It's really hard to explain unless maybe you've been through it somehow," he said of battling cancer. "It seemed like I was always trying to get our team in a position to be really good at the end of the year and that was where all the focus was.

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